The prior art is documented with examples of monostable lever shifters such as which are depicted in the environmental views of FIGS. 1-4. These include general illustrations for each of commercially known lever style shifters associated with existing vehicles including each of a BMW (at 2 in FIG. 1), Land Rover (at 4 in FIG. 2), Mercedes Benz (at 6 in FIG. 3) and Toyota (at 8 in FIG. 4).
Other examples drawn from the prior art include Ehrmaier, U.S. Pat. No. 7,028,575, which teaches a variation of a monostable shifting mechanism in a linear shifting environment and including a shifting element for selecting a plurality of shifting conditions (reverse, neutral, drive) and a step by step shifting condition in which the manual shifting of forward gears takes place. First and second shifting channels are provided for the shifting element, such that the shifting element has a stable position in the first shifting channel and is deflectable to select any one of the shifting conditions and for the manual shifting of the forward gears. Ehrmaier further teaches that the stable position in the first channel is the only stable position of the shifting element which, after being deflected and released, automatically returns to the stable position.
A number of the attached discloses are directed to some form of powered or motorized configuration for establishing a return to park condition. Examples of these include each of the default to park mechanism of Swaita, US 2015/0143938, the rotary gear shifter of Levesque, US 2016/0017983, and the shift device of Watanabe, US 2016/0138704.
A number of additional rotary shifters include push button functionality and include each of Watanabe, US 2014/0345409, in which the knob is rotatable about an axis and movable when pushed in an inward axial direction, Curl, US 2013/0220055, in which the push button switch for selecting from a third group of driving characteristics includes operational states of a power system of the vehicle, and Fett, U.S. Pat. No. 9,334,949, including a central overdrive “S” setting push button.
Other known references teach variations of rotary shifters, some of which include various types of inductive or magnetic (Hall effect) rotary position sensors (see exploded FIG. 3 of Watanabe, US 2014/0345409), notable among these including the rotary control knob assembly of Miret, U.S. Pat. No. 8,336,424, and the shifter selection device of Furhoff, U.S. Pat. No. 8,170,757.